Subject
aqua tofana
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Date
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Dolly Durmanov, Van's and Ada's grandmother, gave her daughters, the twin sisters, the names Aqua and Marina. 'Why not Tofana?' wondered Dolly's husband.
The poisonous aqua tofana is mentioned in Heine's Denkschrift "Ludwig Boerne" (1840): "Wer mit Rom Krieg fuehren will, muss alle moeglichen Gifte vertragen koennen, nicht bloss plumpen Arsenik, sondern auch einschlaeferndes phantastisches Opium, und gar das schleichende Aquatofana der Verleumdung!" (Book One)
Verleumdung is German for "slander". In Book Four of "Ludwig Boerne" Heine mentions Wolfrum, a young Bavarian who became a victim of slander. During his stay in Belgium Wolfrum read in a newspaper that he was an agent of Bavarian Jesuits, returned to Paris penniless and ill and died in Hotel de Dieu (a hospital in Paris). The hospital's name reminded me of the Signy-Mondieu doctors and Aqua's "sanastoria" (Astoria is a luxurious hotel in St. Petersburg) in Ada. On the other hand,
Hotel de Dieu + t = deuil + Odette + h = hote + diet + duel
Wolfrum + a = Wolfram + u = wolf + Raum
deuil - Fr., mourning; cf. in Ada (2.3): "In his London studio her husband, an unbalanced, unsuccessful painter (ten years older than his father-in-law whom he envied and despised) shot himself upon receiving the news by cablegram from a village in Normandy called, dreadfully, Deuil."
Odette - female given name; cf. Odette Swann, a character in Proust's "A la recherche du temps perdu"
hote - Fr., host
Wolfram - tungsten
Raum - Germ., space; Raum = Amur = mura = arum = muar (Amur is a river and the Russian name of Amor; mura is one of Russian words for "nonsense"; великая мура, great nonsense, is mentioned by Mandelshtam in the same poem as курва Москва, Moscow the whore; arum is a plant mentioned by Pasternak in a poem included in "My Sister Life"; muar is Russian for moire, watered silk)
Alexey Sklyarenko
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The poisonous aqua tofana is mentioned in Heine's Denkschrift "Ludwig Boerne" (1840): "Wer mit Rom Krieg fuehren will, muss alle moeglichen Gifte vertragen koennen, nicht bloss plumpen Arsenik, sondern auch einschlaeferndes phantastisches Opium, und gar das schleichende Aquatofana der Verleumdung!" (Book One)
Verleumdung is German for "slander". In Book Four of "Ludwig Boerne" Heine mentions Wolfrum, a young Bavarian who became a victim of slander. During his stay in Belgium Wolfrum read in a newspaper that he was an agent of Bavarian Jesuits, returned to Paris penniless and ill and died in Hotel de Dieu (a hospital in Paris). The hospital's name reminded me of the Signy-Mondieu doctors and Aqua's "sanastoria" (Astoria is a luxurious hotel in St. Petersburg) in Ada. On the other hand,
Hotel de Dieu + t = deuil + Odette + h = hote + diet + duel
Wolfrum + a = Wolfram + u = wolf + Raum
deuil - Fr., mourning; cf. in Ada (2.3): "In his London studio her husband, an unbalanced, unsuccessful painter (ten years older than his father-in-law whom he envied and despised) shot himself upon receiving the news by cablegram from a village in Normandy called, dreadfully, Deuil."
Odette - female given name; cf. Odette Swann, a character in Proust's "A la recherche du temps perdu"
hote - Fr., host
Wolfram - tungsten
Raum - Germ., space; Raum = Amur = mura = arum = muar (Amur is a river and the Russian name of Amor; mura is one of Russian words for "nonsense"; великая мура, great nonsense, is mentioned by Mandelshtam in the same poem as курва Москва, Moscow the whore; arum is a plant mentioned by Pasternak in a poem included in "My Sister Life"; muar is Russian for moire, watered silk)
Alexey Sklyarenko
Search archive with Google:
http://www.google.com/advanced_search?q=site:listserv.ucsb.edu&HL=en
Contact the Editors: mailto:nabokv-l@utk.edu,nabokv-l@holycross.edu
Visit Zembla: http://www.libraries.psu.edu/nabokov/zembla.htm
View Nabokv-L policies: http://web.utk.edu/~sblackwe/EDNote.htm
Visit "Nabokov Online Journal:" http://www.nabokovonline.com
Manage subscription options: http://listserv.ucsb.edu/